Observed Signal · May 15, 2024 · Funding · Source: Tech.eu · Impact: 2/5 · Sentiment: Positive
Malted AI Raises £6M Seed Funding for Small Language Models
Scottish startup Malted AI has raised £6 million in seed funding, led by Hoxton Ventures with participation from Creator Fund and angel investors, bringing total funding to £7 million. The company builds a distillation platform that converts large language model outputs into smaller, domain-specific models. According to Malted AI, these small language models (SLMs) can address enterprise challenges with 10-100x cost savings while achieving higher precision on specific tasks than larger general models. Financial and legal firms are already piloting the technology, with broader rollout planned for 2024. The company was founded by Iain Mackie, Carlos Gammel, and Federico Rossetto, who won the 2022 Amazon Alexa Prize. The new capital will be used for research, product development, and recruitment, doubling the current 10-person team.
Seed funding for a startup building cost-efficient small language models; relevant to enterprise AI cost reduction and broader AI infrastructure, but not an industry-shifting event for AdTech.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Malted AI raised £6 million in seed funding led by Hoxton Ventures, with Creator Fund and angel investors participating.
- The round brings Malted AI's total funding to £7 million.
- Malted AI distils large language models into small language models designed for domain-specific enterprise tasks.
- The company claims 10-100x cost savings compared to general-purpose LLMs.
- Financial and legal firms are piloting Malted AI's technology.
Connected Companies & Entities
6 Entities mapped“Scottish startup Malted AI announced today that it has secured £6 million in seed investment, led by Hoxton Ventures and joined by Creator F...”
“Malted AI was born out of concepts that helped founders - Iain Mackie, Carlos Gammel and Federico Rossetto - win the 2022 Amazon Alexa Prize...”
“Its founders include an ex-quant trader, a former-Meta researcher, and a maths champion who lead a team of world-class LLM and applied-AI ta...”
“The founders lead a team of world-class LLM and applied-AI talent hailing from Deepmind, Amazon, Google, Bloomberg and top PhDs....”
“The founders lead a team of world-class LLM and applied-AI talent hailing from Deepmind, Amazon, Google, Bloomberg and top PhDs....”
“The founders lead a team of world-class LLM and applied-AI talent hailing from Deepmind, Amazon, Google, Bloomberg and top PhDs....”
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